I ran the 400-1600 in HS and did XC and track for three years. I barely broke 5 and ran a few 56" relay splits in the 4x4, which was good enough to be the 3rd-4th fastest guy on the team. But I was obviously nothing special, and I had no hope of being a walk-on in college since I went to a mid-tier D1 school.
So I ended up running unattached for a few years, even after graduating from college. I did PR several times, but not by a huge margin.
The weird thing is that I generally preferred running unattached to being on the team. We were over-raced, did too many intervals and not enough mileage, and had team politics over who ran what events, who got to/had to run in meet X, and who got to/had to be on the relay team. And on top of that, you'd have these random insecure 5:30 - 5:45 milers with a chip on their shoulder who would try to race tempo runs, long runs, and even cooldowns.
Anyone else feel the same way?